Sorry I haven't kept up the primer, Burn got new pieces and that's really my baby and so I spent time testing those and then I was practising for some larger events and then Hogaak happened, but now I'm back and I think this deck is well positioned with the slower meta we seem to be going into so let's see what we can do!

I think it's neat, and that if one were to splash that there are definitely a lot of things that black could bring to a deck like this. It's just that at first glance Bloodghast and Brutality are nonbos with Grim Lavamancer, who eats your graveyard, and Ferocidon, who stops your lifegain. Personally I'd try it with a more aggressive bent and swap Grim and the Dino for some burn or utility spells and Goblin Rabblemaster respectively, with Rampaging Ferocidon being higher on the "cut it list".

First, sorry for the late reply. I've been busy! Unfortunately I do not know any guides that deal with that kind of thing and I really need more play time to add it here. What I do know is that I would say stay away from 1 landers or 5+ landers, and be wary of 4's. They're keepable often enough but not always. and don't keep creature-less hands. We aren't burn. Check out the subreddit for more!

There's not much I disagree with here, most of this is down to me only putting cards I've seen being run in the list. Maybe I should have a section for untested cards? That might be good.

Anyway the big thing I wanted to address was Ash Zealot and Harsh Mentor. Both have proven to work very well in the short time this archetype's been around. I'm not saying don't try different things, just that they've definitely earned their slots.

Some people run it, some don't. It's kind of a free roll because it's not like the deck is going to run out of basics to fetch off Field of Ruin and very few people run Molten Rain beyond Ponza and the mirror, but it's not like it's necessary by any means. That's why it has such a low rating.

By this time you'll have noticed that we curve out at 3cmc, but from time to time the idea of running a card with 4cmc pops up. Now there's a lot that's bad about 4-drops in this deck. Firstly we run 19-20 land, so sure we'll get to 4 sometimes, but not all that often and there's little worse than a dead card in this game. Secondly we run Bomat Courier, which initially may not seem like a big issue but it is. Having a bomb like it would have to be for this deck to run it, you're now incentivized to not crack your Courier to hold on to your 4-drop. We want to run out our hand quick and then refill it, not wait for the perfect moment to devastate our opponent with a dragon. That all said, I ain't gonna tell what to do and it never hurts to try something new. Or even something old in a new meta. So here a couple of the 4-drops we'd be most likely to make use of.

Hellrider: We're about the only deck in Modern that can really make use of what can be an awfully devastating card. However it fails the Lightning Bolt test, and that is a very real drawback to an already expensive creature. Run 0-2

Hazoret the Fervent: By now running 2017-18 standard cards should be pretty familiar territory for us, so why not Hazoret? She has Haste, is Indestructible, and flings unwanted cards at our opponent's head. Unfortunately we can get most of this elsewhere for cheaper, in more ways than one. Run 0-2

Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Again looking at 2017-18 standard cards. The best red 'walker provides card advantage, repeatable damage, and removal. If we ran a 4-drop it would be her. Run 0-2

So this deck's main weakness is a lack of Eidolon of the Great Revel. We've done our best to mitigate that by running playsets of our other taxing creatures. Retaining Molten Rain is pretty necessary here to help slow down the opponent while not letting up pressure. Stone Rain could do in a pinch though and does bring the deck under $40, but I would strongly recommend against it.

You may recognize this as the sample decklist from the beginning of the primer. This where the deck really starts to gain traction with a playset of Eidolon of the Great Revel. There isn't much of anything that a higher dollar deck does this one doesn't, and it's well under budget at ~$85. Grim Lavamancer is the first card to cut if you need it cheaper though.

This is actually my personal list and is therefore effected by my meta and play experiences. It is, however, not atypical of a Bomat Red list. Not much to say here except Leyline of Combustion is something I'm testing.

So this is a straight up copy of Kuhmero's deck with an “upgraded” manabase. The actual list is about $200 as it is without Fetches. This is as expensive as these decks get, and this is way more than you need. The lists that put up results almost universally cost sub $250. First budgetary is fetches.

The regular taxes variant isn't the only way to build a Bomat Red deck. There's also the hyper-aggro variant. And for now that's about it, though splashes are possible, lets have a look at some sample decklists.

So this deck is much more similar to a traditional RDW (Red Deck Wins) shell because its gameplan is much more straightforward: turn things sideways. In this build taxing effects are just bonuses along the way, and the real stock and trade of its creatures is combat. Here Bomat Courier running into removal is always bad, because you really need the refill to your hand. If you want to close the game now, this is your build. If you want to have longer legs and a better matchup against 'Goyf decks, maybe look elsewhere.

White is probably the easiest splash thanks to Sunbaked Canyon, and does bring unconditional removal and lifegain, but there's an argument to be made that this compromises the deck too much and that it would simply be better as a traditional D&T list with access to red.

Green probably adds the most to what the deck does by giving access to Burning-Tree Shaman, which while symmetrical does hit planeswalkers crucially, and Cindervines which is not only a nice way to deal with enchantments but 4 pseudo Eidolons you can bring in out of the board. Other than that there isn't a whole lot, and it's quite the investment for a colour with no Horizon land but it might prove useful.

Dismissive Pyromancer: Card filtering and removal for big creatures are both things this deck wants, but does it want them enough.

Light Up the Stage: Being able to "draw" cards in red is powerful, but I don't know if a card that only does that is necessary. Bomat does damage and the Horizon lands produce mana, but this is just cards. Although it does work well with the Courier because the cards won't be discarded.

Welcome to Bomat Red, also know as Sligh, Modern Ramunap Red, RDW, or “You know this is Modern, right?”. At its core Bomat Red is a creature based aggro deck, sure you've got burn but most of your damage comes from creatures. The thing that sets us apart from just being Zoo with removal is that our creatures don't just deal damage in combat, they deal damage any time our opponent does anything. Put a creature onto the Battlefield? That's damage. Crack a Fetch? Damage. Flashback a spell? You better bet that's damage. We also get card advantage off of the card the deck is named after, Bomat Courier. We'll go over that little guy more in Card Choices

This is an unexpectedly flexible deck as you really only need the card to be a creature or burn at 1, 2, or 3 mana to be viable. And Red, very Red. You want 22-27 creatures, 14-19 spells, and 19-20 lands.

Creatures

Bomat Courier: This Raging Goblin-Claptrap hybrid is actually really key to the deck. It looks small and unassuming, and sometimes it is. Most of the time it eats removal before cracking it is profitable, which in its self isn't bad. 3-4 damage and an opponent's removal spell for 1 isn't nothing. And then there are the times it works perfectly and you get Lava Spike and Ancestral Recall in one card. In mono-red. In Modern. Run 4

Soul-Scar Mage: Yet another Ramunap Red standard card that this deck just loves. It gets in for damage just as well as Monastery Swiftspear and lets us do something mono-red normally can't; deal with big creatures. Run 3-4

Monastery Swiftspear: Not one of the strongest creatures in the deck, but still necessary for the curve. She also happens to be able to get in for solid damage if unchecked. Run 0-4

Grim Lavamancer: The 1-drop that you don't drop on turn 1. Gives repeatable and uncounterable damage for the long game or go-wide strategies. Run 0-4

Eidolon of the Great Revel: Taxing the opponent for playing cheap spells is great for what we're trying to do. Soaks up removal like a champ, which is actually a good thing with this creature. Run as many as you can afford

Ash Zealot: Honestly this card would be on here without the graveyard ability, and most of the time it won't be relevant. But when it is, free Bolts are always great! Run 0-4

Goblin Cratermaker: This little goblin is a bear with Creature and Artifact hate stapled to it that also hits Eldrazi and Tron Planeswalkers, which is pretty good utility. Run 0-2

Earthshaker Khenra: Usually found in hyper aggressive list. No taxing effect and the fact that it dies to everything are big drawbacks, but the ability to recur a 4/4 with haste if the game goes long can make up for it if you just want a big dumb beatstick. Run 0-4

Harsh Mentor: A bear that taxes fetch lands is not to be sniffed at, which is a shame considering how many people sniff at him. Run 0-4

Dire Fleet Daredevil: A card that is great in some matchups and mediocre in others. Doesn't pain us off [[Ash Zealot]] and is bad graveyard hate due to exiling. There's debate as to whether she belongs in the main or side. Run 0-2

Instants and Sorceries

Searing Blaze: Not as good without fetches, but still a solid enough choice if you want to kill off small creatures without taking off a turn from damaging your opponent. Run 0-4

Searing Blood: Not quite as powerful as Searing Blaze, but much more reliable and the 1 damage difference is rarely relevant. Run 0-4

Incinerate: Turns out that 3 damage at instant speed can be good enough for 2 in modern in the right deck. Still hurts though to run Lightning Strike's older brother. Run 0-4

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage: An interesting utility creature. Probably better as a sideboard card against W/U Control because it can destroy Planeswalkers very easily, but worth considering as a maindeck card because it can turn anything into an Incinerate Run 0-2

Scab-Clan Berserker: While it doesn't do much in creature matchups, it can be devastating to spell based decks. A very good substitute for Eidolon of the Great Revel if you're on a very strict budget. Run 0-2, 4 if you can't afford Eidolon

Instants and Sorceries

Molten Rain: A somewhat controversial card. Can win games against greedy decks and big mana decks, or do next to nothing against Basic heavy decks. Run 0 or 4

Rift Bolt: Most often used as a 1-drop, but I usually like planning for the worst possible scenario and that means hardcasting Rift Bolt. Benefits from Suspend, but suffers from Sorcery speed and being over costed. Run 0-4

Bomat Red's unique feature is that it is at its heart secretly a taxes deck. A very aggressive taxes deck, but still a taxes deck. Only we don't want to stop our opponent's from doing things most of the time, we're just fine with them doing things. In fact our aggressive nature is there to force them to do things as quickly as possible. We just want to make it painful for them to be doing things. We want to make it so that if our opponent is playing correctly we tax them half to death and beat them down the other half or so that they don't play correctly in which case we can punish them for that by just being an efficient Red deck.

Because of all this, like many other Red decks, Bomat Red is easy to learn but harder to master. Not that hard mind, we are swinging aggressively with cheap creatures after all. I won't lie, it's pretty easy to pick this deck up and just burn every creature in sight, swinging merrily away and janking out some wins. However learning the counter-intuitive things like when it's correct to Molten Rain a Fetch (Hint: Harsh Mentor is usually involved) will take a lot more time. Sometimes Bomat Courier is worth cracking to card disadvantage, just to dig for answers. Sometimes Eidolon of the Great Revel isn't the optimal play on turn 2, and other times it's even correct to run her out into removal you know is coming. There are some weird lines this deck has to take to do the most damage.

This is a bit of a WiP. Although the history behind this archetype is long, don't know a lot about the matchups for this particular style of Sligh. Any feedback on these or any other matchups, especially backed up by data, would be very appreciated.

Counters Company: Good. We run things that tax creatures entering the battlefield and activated abilities making it very hard for them to combo off without removal, which they have very little of.

Hardened Affinity: Even-Good. Eidolon of the Great Revel is much better here than when it was traditional Affinity. Harsh Mentor is the real MVP here though, hitting both Moth lands and Arcbound Ravager. They do go a lot bigger than us so we have to make sure we're on top of their board state.

Burn: Even. Often a die roll and race to Eidolon of the Great Revel (I'm noticing a theme here). They are faster than us and don't have much to tax unfortunately, but we can create an awful lot of problems for them to have to answer, our lands don't really hurt us, and we can lock them out of colours. So kind of like a poor approximation of Merfolk but with Dragon's Claw which they rarely board in hate for even in game 3.

Jund: Even. We don't answer 'Goyf well, they don't deal well with Eidolon of the Great Revel, they have lots of hand hate, we have Bomat Courier, they have lots of removal, they also tax themselves a lot with Bob. Kind of a coin flip.

Tron: Bad-Even. We either maindeck land destruction or are slanted towards being hyper-aggro depending on the list, neither of which Tron is good at dealing with but we don't deal well with what they're doing if they get there either and we don't have much to tax them with here. Ultimately Karn, the Great Creator being able to fetch whatever they need made a huge difference in this matchup.

Grixis Death Shadow: Bad. Another deck with heavy removal and creatures we don't interact with well. Eidolon of the Great Revel can wreck their day or help them immensely depending on the situation, so be careful.

Skullcrack: Decks that gain life often have good ways of interacting with creatures, so Rampaging Ferocidon might not cut it. Also having something to put in for Searing effects against creature-less/light decks is nice. Run 0-4

Ratchet Bomb: Mostly Bogles tech, but has fringe benefits in other matchups. Be warned, all our stuff is 1-3cmc where this card is best.

It's also important to note that many of the maindeck choices make for great sideboard options as they are often very punishing against certain decks and just bears against others.

Goblin Guide: And you thought you had found a mono-Red Aggro deck that didn't want him. And you might be right. Many builds do leave him out intentionally in part because they run Molten Rain and in part because he pushes you to be very aggressive, otherwise your opponents get to benefit too much from the lands you feed them and the gas you dig them towards. Replace Monastery Swiftspear and drop Molten Rain.

Sunbaked Canyon/Fiery Islet: The single best upgrade here. Extra card draw that prevents flood isn't as wonderful for us as it is for burn, but it's still amazing for us. Run 2-6

Fetches: Like Guide these are not necessary for an optimal build by any means, while they do fuel Grim Lavamancer and Searing Blaze you do lose a lot more life to your own manabase and might need 20 lands to reliably curve out which can be very important. Run 0-10

One thing you may have noticed is that, aside from Horizon lands, none of these “upgrades” necessarily make the deck better and are more lateral moves. That means these are even more optional than usual.

You know normally I'd be on the "non-stock card is bad" train, but looking at n0bunga's list it's more DS aggro than Burn. I've got more problems with Abbot of Keral Keep than I do Claim // Fame in that kind of list if I'm honest.

edit: Also I think the best place for Sovereign's Bite would be a Mardu list. It should have enough lifegain to overcome the loss due to the more painful manabase compared to Naya or Jund plus you still get extra an 4 Lava Spikes. I'd run like 3 Blackcleave Cliffs, 1 Blood Crypt, and 2 Sacred Foundry

Basically running anything that requires white mainboard greatly magnifies the negative impact of a splash. Deflecting Palm main would force me to always fetch at least one Plateau in case I drew it, so then I'm always open to Wasteland and always take damage from Price of Progress. As it stands I only play my duals if they come up naturally or I've boarded in something, thereby minimizing risk.

Plateau: If I'm splashing White this is the best option. It's fetchable, casts bolt, and sacs to Fireblast, none of which Karakas does. The only downsides are that it dies to Wasteland and Price of Progress can now deal me damage, though I only run 2 so it doesn't come up too often. This is the only maindeck piece of the package.

Deflecting Palm: While not a permanent solution to a big creature like Path to Exile is, it can be a permanent solution to the opponent. Hits Emerakul as it does not target which kind of makes it an Ashen Rider that matters in other matchups.

Path to Exile: This is the cleanest solution for big creatures I can think of, as letting my opponent gain life off Swords to Plowshares seemed awful. Interacts with a landed Iona on Red, which allows me to run graveyard hate that doesn't come down turn 0-1 (and in the case of Relic replaces itself) and not just scoop to Reanimator.

What about splashing Plateaus for white and throwing in fetches? Someone was talking about Palm in the board and white can do everything Chaos Warp does for cheaper and I can turn on Blaze. I know Karakas is better than Palm usually, but a land that can't cast bolt bugs me and that's white anyway.

Are you sure that not killing Leovold is worth it? I could just jam in the fetches. I've got access to all the Red fetches I need, I just don't like the idea of getting Stifled.

Chaos Warp is weird yes. It's basically anti reanimator/Sneak and Show(might show up too)/Depths tech that doubles as enchantment removal and land destruction. I honestly haven't played with it much, it might be too out of left field and I might be leaning too much on my modern sensibilities, but it feels like Path, Disenchant, and Ghost Quarter all rolled into one to me. Now those cards don't see much play in legacy, especially at 3cmc, but it might be a good 1-card catchall for stuff that Red doesn't deal with well.